Super Bowl I
The First AFL-NFL World Championship Game in professional American football, later known as Super Bowl I and referred to in some contemporary reports as the Supergame, was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The National Football League (NFL) champion Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League (AFL) champion Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 35–10. Coming into this game, there was still considerable animosity between the two rival leagues, and both teams felt pressure to win. The Chiefs posted a 11-2-1 record during the 1966 AFL season, and defeated the Buffalo Bills, 31-7, in 1966 AFL Championship Game. The Packers finished the 1966 NFL season at 12-2, and defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 34-27, in the 1966 NFL Championship Game. Still, many sports writers and fans believed that any team in the older NFL was vastly superior to any club in the upstart AFL, and thus expected that Green Bay would blowout Kansas City. The first half of Super Bowl I was competitive, as the Chiefs out-gained the Packers in total yards, 181–164, to come within 14-10 at halftime. But Green Bay safety Willie Wood's 50-yard interception return early in the third quarter sparked the Packers to score 21 unanswered points in the second half. Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr, who completed 16 of 23 passes for 250 yards and two touchdowns, with 1 interception, was named Super Bowl MVP. This remains the only Super Bowl to have not been a sellout. It also is the only Super Bowl to have been simulcast in the United States by two networks: NBC had the rights to nationally televise AFL games while CBS held the rights to broadcast NFL games; it was decided that both networks could televise the game. The first Super Bowl's entertainment largely consisted of college bands, instead of featuring popular singers and musicians like in more recent Super Bowls. Background Origins The First AFL-NFL World Championship Game was established as part of the June 8, 1966 merger agreement between the NFL and the AFL. However, Los Angeles was not awarded the game until six weeks prior to the kickoff; likewise, the date of the game was not set until around then. Since the AFL Championship Game originally was scheduled for Monday, December 26 and the NFL Championship Game for Sunday, January 1 (the reverse of the situation following the 1960 season), it was suggested the "new" championship game be played Sunday, January 8. Eventually, it was decided to hold an unprecedented TV doubleheader on January 1, with the AFL Championship Game telecast from Buffalo starting at 1 p.m. and the NFL Championship Game telecast from Dallas starting at 4 p.m. Coming into this "first" game, there was considerable animosity between the two rival leagues, with both of them putting pressure on their respective champions to trounce the other and prove each league's dominance in professional football. Still, many sports writers and fans believed that the game was a mismatch, and that any team from the long-established NFL was far superior to the best team from the upstart AFL. The teams that played were the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, with the Packers winning 35-10. Kansas City Chiefs The Chiefs entered the game after recording an 11-2-1 mark during the regular season. In the AFL Championship Game, they beat the Buffalo Bills, 31-7. Kansas City's high powered offense led the AFL in points scored (448) and total rushing yards (2,274). Their trio of running backs, Mike Garrett (801 yards), Bert Coan (521 yards), and Curtis McClinton (540 yards) all ranked among the top ten rushers in the AFL. Quarterback Len Dawson was the top rated passer in the AFL, completing 159 out of 284 (56 percent) of his passes for 2,527 yards and 26 touchdowns. Wide receiver Otis Taylor provided the team with a great deep threat by recording 58 receptions of 1,297 yards and 8 touchdowns. Receiver Chris Burford added 58 receptions for 758 yards and 8 touchdowns. And tight end Fred Arbanas, who had 22 catches for 305 yards and 4 touchdowns, was one of 6 Chiefs offensive players who were named to the All-AFL team. The Chiefs also had a strong defense, with All-AFL players Jerry Mays and Buck Buchanan anchoring their line. Linebacker Bobby Bell, who was also named to the All-AFL team, was great at run stopping and pass coverage. But the strongest part of their defense was their secondary, led by All-AFL safeties Johnny Robinson and Bobby Hunt, who each recorded 10 interceptions, and defensive back Fred Williamson, who recorded 4. Their Head Coach was Hank Stram. Green Bay Packers The Packers were an NFL dynasty turning around what had been a losing team just eight years earlier. The team had posted an NFL-worst 1–10–1 record in 1958 before legendary head coach Vince Lombardi was hired in January 1959. But Lombardi was determined to build a winning team. During the offseason, he signed Fred "Fuzzy" Thurston, who had been cut from three other teams but ended up becoming an All-Pro left guard for Green Bay. Lombardi also made a big trade with the Cleveland Browns that brought three players to the team who would become cornerstones of the defense: linemen Henry Jordan, Willie Davis, and Bill Quinlan. Lombardi's hard work paid off, and the Packers improved to a 7–5 regular season record in 1959. They surprised the league during the following year by making it all the way to the 1960 NFL Championship Game. Although the Packers lost 17–13 to the Philadelphia Eagles, they had sent a clear message that they were no longer losers. Green Bay went on to win NFL Championships in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 1967. Packers veteran quarterback Bart Starr was the top-rated quarterback in the NFL for 1966, and won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award, completing 156 out of 251 (62.2 percent) passes for 2,257 yards, 14 touchdowns, and only 3 interceptions. His top targets were wide receivers Boyd Dowler and Carroll Dale, who combined for 63 receptions for 1,336 yards. Fullback Jim Taylor was the team's top rusher with 705 yards, and also caught 41 passes for 331 yards. (Before the season, Taylor had informed the team that instead of returning to the Packers in 1967, he would become a free agent and sign with the expansion New Orleans Saints. Lombardi, infuriated at what he considered to be Taylor's disloyalty, refused to speak to Taylor the entire season.) The team's starting halfback, Paul Hornung, was injured early in the season, but running back Elijah Pitts did a good job as a replacement, gaining 857 combined rushing and receiving yards. And the Packers offensive line was also big reason for the team's success, led by All-Pro guards Jerry Kramer and Thurston, along with Forrest Gregg. Green Bay also had a superb defense, which displayed its talent on the final drive of the NFL Championship Game, stopping the Dallas Cowboys on 4 consecutive plays starting on the Packers 2-yard line to win the game. Lionel Aldridge had replaced Quinlan, but Jordan and Davis still anchored the defensive line, linebacker Ray Nitschke excelled at run stopping and pass coverage, while the secondary was led by defensive backs Herb Adderley and Willie Wood. Wood was another example of how Lombardi found talent in players that nobody else could see. Wood had been a quarterback in college and was not drafted by an NFL team. When Wood joined the Packers in 1960, he was converted to a free safety and he went on to make the All-Pro team 9 times in his 12 year career. Television Lost Footage Much to the dismay of television historians, all known broadcast tapes which recorded the game in its entirety were subsequently destroyed in a process of wiping, the reusing of videotape by taping over previous content, by both networks. This was due to the idea that the game wasn't going to become what it did, plus videotapes were extremely expensive back then. This has prevented contrast and compare studies of how each network handled their respective coverage. Despite this, television and sports archivists remain on the lookout, and at least two small samples of the telecast survive: a recording of Max McGee's opening touchdown and Jim Taylor's first touchdown run (Packers' second touchdown), both were shown on HBO's 1991 two-part sports documentary, Play by Play: A History of Sports Television. NFL Films had a camera crew present, and retains a substantial amount of film footage in its archives, some of which has been released for home video and cable presentations. One such presentation was the NFL's Greatest Games episode about this Super Bowl, entitled The Spectacle of a Sport(also the title of the Super Bowl I highlight film). In January 2011, it was reported that a recording of the CBS telecast had been found in a Pennsylvania attic and restored by the Paley Center for Media in New York. The 2" color videotape is incomplete, and is missing the halftime show and most of the third-quarter footage, but is still the most complete version of the broadcast yet discovered. Category:Super Bowl